


Honey, I'm home

by belmanoir



Series: I used to live here [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurel learns that Tommy's still alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honey, I'm home

They drive into Starling City in Oliver's Mercedes, Tommy trying not to get too claustrophobic. He only has to ask Oliver to stop the car so he can get out and breathe once. His standards are so low right now that he's actually kind of proud of that.

"Where do you want to go?" Oliver asks when they get off the freeway.

"I want to see Laurel." She deserves to know as soon as possible. She deserves to hear it from them and not see it on TV. Yep. His motives are totally unselfish.

Oliver sighs and pulls over, turning his shoulders ninety degrees to look at Tommy, as if making eye contact is the be all and end all of showing support and he's going to give it everything he's got. "How do you want to do this?"

"Um." Tommy tries to think past _Laurel Laurel Laurel Laurel_ and a million images of her face superimposed on each other. "I don't want to freak her out by just showing up. Can you go in ahead and break the news?"

Oliver takes a deep breath. "Yeah. Okay." He pulls out his phone. Tommy can't help noticing that Laurel's #2 on speed dial. "Hey Laurel. Can I come over? It's kind of urgent...no, nothing bad, good news, actually, but it really can't wait...I know." He sighs, sounding defeated. "I know, Laurel. _Please._ " Tommy knows Laurel won't be able to resist that, and sure enough, five seconds later Oliver is saying, "Thanks. I'll be there in twenty."

Tommy is afraid to wait in the car by himself. He doesn't really want to say that, though, so he just pulls the hood of Oliver's sweatshirt up to hide his face and gets out of the car when Oliver does. He doesn't glance up at the windows. Last time he did that, he saw Laurel and Oliver wrapped around each other. It still hurts. What if Laurel doesn't want him back? Worse, what if Laurel takes him back because she feels sorry for him because he's so jumpy and undernourished? Of course he got _inadequate prison diet_ and Oliver got _weight training island_.

Laurel buzzes Oliver in. Tommy is silent, so she can't tell he's there over the intercom. It makes him feel invisible--a ghost, or a shadow following silently on Oliver's heels. He used to love this hallway. Why doesn't he feel that anymore? Why doesn't this feel like coming home? Why doesn't he want to get down and kiss the worn hardwood? He used to be so happy he couldn't breathe, letting himself in with the key Laurel had given him and saying hello to these scuffed, glowing stairs. He used to clatter up the steps and swallow the urge to sing out _Honey, I'm home!_ when he opened the door. He'd never gotten to where he could let himself into her apartment without knocking, though. Now it just looks like a floor and some stairs.

He waits on the landing while Oliver goes on ahead. He hears the door open. He hears Laurel say, "Come in." Eight months without Laurel's voice. Impatience knots in his stomach. As soon as the door closes he's up the rest of the stairs and leaning awkwardly against the wall outside, trying to hear anything at all.

Even though he's waiting for it, he still jumps three feet in the air when the door bangs open. Laurel stands in the threshold, staring at him. "Tommy?"

He doesn't know why everyone does that. She knows it's him. "Hey," he says, with a weak smile, kinda moving his arms to hint that he wants a hug without coming off as overconfident. She flies at him in a swirl of hair, arms going tight around him. Her nose presses into his neck.

"Tommy. Oh my god, Tommy. Oh my god."

He puts his arms around her. She smells wrong, she's putting something new in her hair it looks like, but she feels like Laurel. She feels so fucking familiar, so perfect, and he squeezes her tight and doesn't look at Oliver and thinks _mine_.

She pulls back, eyes searching his face. "Are you okay? What happened?" Then she hugs him again without waiting for an answer. "I can't believe it's really you."

Oliver heads for the stairs. "I'll see you guys later."

Tommy wants him to go, but he also remembers him saying, _Laurel really misses you_ in that sad stiff voice, and Oliver did kind of save him. "You don't have to go."

"I've got a thing," Oliver says. 

Now Tommy is remembering that Oliver is a superhero and maybe he'd be useful to have around in case Tommy is attacked.

But Tommy's never going to be safe again. He'll have to get a bodyguard and learn to live with it. "Okay," he says. "Um. Do you still want me to--?" He can't figure out how to say _tell Laurel your secret identity_ in code, but he knows Oliver will know what he means. Probably it's hard to think about anything else when you know that's coming. From what Oliver said, Laurel hasn't exactly been the vigilante's biggest fan recently. 

Oliver glances at Laurel, mouth tightening into a small, determined line. He nods. "Call me and let me know how things go."

"Bye, Ollie," Laurel says distractedly. 

"Hey, Oliver." Oliver pulls up short and looks back, every line in his body straining towards the exit. "Thanks."

His face softens. "Anytime." He nods again, like he's in the fucking military, and disappears around the corner.

Laurel pulls Tommy in by his hand and sits him at one end of the couch. She takes the other end. Not touching, he notices. Is it so she can see his face, or because she doesn't want to touch him? It's so strange to be back in this familiar room with all this new fear inside of him. Is this how Oliver feels? _Only worse,_ he reminds himself. _Oliver must feel worse._

"Tell me everything," Laurel says, looking a little shaky. 

"Um. There's not really a lot to tell. I woke up in an evil fake ambulance and spent the last eight months in a cell. The vigilante found me and got me out." He shrugs. "Weird how it felt like a hundred years, but it only takes about five seconds to say."

"You don't--are you hungry? Can I get you anything?"

"You don't look like you've been eating all that much yourself."

Her shoulders square a little. 

He reaches up and touches the corner of her mouth with his index finger. She lets him. "I missed your mouth. I love the way it sets when you're getting ready for a fight." 

"You dumped me," she says abruptly, in a tone of voice like she's delivering a counterargument in the middle of a completely different conversation. There's something lost about it. Maybe it's a conversation she's been having with herself for a while now. He really fucked up.

"I know," he says. "And I have regretted it every day since."

"You said-- Tommy, you can't, you can't just come back here and--"

He tries to contain the horrible loneliness that bursts through him. But he can't. He says, voice tight, "Yeah, well, I tried to come back here eight months ago and saw you kissing Oliver in the window." She stares at him in complete and total shock. He can see her scrabbling for her arguments, getting her rhetorical ducks in a row, and he's so tired and he missed her so much. "And the really amazing thing, the real kicker, is that I wouldn't have come if Oliver hadn't talked me into it about three hours earlier."

Her jaw drops further. "He...Oliver did what?"

He sighs and rubs at his forehead. "I don't blame you, okay? I don't even really blame Oliver. I shouldn't have broken up with you. I should have faced our problems together, like you said. Just don't act like I took your sister on a boating trip and came back five years later without her, all right?" Maybe this is his punishment for his secret fierce relief that day outside CNRI when she tore Oliver a new one instead of falling into his arms.

"If you think I don't know that you died saving my life--" she says, her voice taut and trembling, "if you think I don't know that I left you in there--"

Dying hurt. He knows it did, that his chest hurt really badly, but honestly that part is a blur what with the shock and all. He remembers feeling really, really sorry for the look on Oliver's face. But for himself, he'd just been so relieved that she wasn't there. That she wasn't feeling any of this pain. "I was right behind you," he says. "You didn't leave me anywhere. You were just lucky."

She shakes her head. "I shouldn't have gone to work. You wouldn't even have been there if I..."

He smiles. He can't quite smile _at_ her, but he smiles at the ends of her overcurled hair on the shoulder of her dress. "I wouldn't have been there if you were a totally different person than the one you are? I can't argue with that." They'd all known without question that she'd be there, her father and him and Oliver. He wishes he could have saved CNRI too.

Her shoulder trembles.

"I didn't die saving your life," he points out. "Well, maybe technically, but I responded to CPR. I'm fine. I haven't been dead. I was abducted by an evil criminal organization for leverage on my father." He can't look at her when he says that. He doesn't want to see her feeling sorry for him about his dad. He's not sure why the idea is so awful, but it is. "My father did this. Not you. You know that."

"I can't just..." she whispers. 

He knows she can't. He does. He remembers how weird it was when Ollie came back. But part of him is a little angry, because when Oliver came back, Tommy sucked it up and pretended to be nothing but happy. He pretended that the loss he'd felt, the years of going to parties by himself, Oliver's silence and his strange new stillness, were no big deal. Maybe he'd done it awkwardly, maybe he'd gone a bit overboard, but he'd taken Oliver right back as his best friend, no questions asked. 

And now Oliver is sobbing all over him and Laurel's going through the stages of grief and he just wants someone to be happy to see him. Maybe he should have had Oliver take him to the club first. Thea would probably be happy. She'd probably throw him a welcome home party. He doesn't want a welcome home party but it would be nice to have someone offer to throw one.

And the really awful thing is that he can't leave. Because he's afraid to get in a car with a stranger so he can't call a taxi, and he's afraid of crowds so he can't walk or take a bus, especially since if anyone recognizes him as Malcolm Merlyn's son, kidnapping is probably the safest thing he can expect to happen. And he really doesn't want to call Oliver and ask to be picked up.

"Do I still have an apartment?" he asks. "Or money?"

She shakes her head. "The Merlyn Global lawyer you appointed as your alternate executor donated your stuff to charities for people who lost their homes in the earthquake. And all the money is tied up in litigation over whether you or your father died first." Her mouth twists. "The vigilante could settle it by testifying, but obviously he hasn't volunteered. I've been trying to get some of the money released to start up your mother's free clinic again, but...anyway, it might take a few months to get everything sorted."

He leans his head against the back of the couch and looks at the ceiling. No clothes, then. 

He doesn't want the money. Let the Glades have it. But he's going to have to call Oliver and ask to stay at the Queen mansion. Oliver will say yes. He'll be gracious about it, maybe even glad to have Tommy around. 

Maybe he's even noble enough that he won't be secretly pleased Tommy isn't staying at Laurel's, but Tommy wouldn't bet on it.

"I don't know how I feel," Laurel says. "I'm glad you're alive." She stops and tries to muster more conviction. "I'm really glad you're alive, Tommy. I'm not ready for--but would you stay the night? Please?"

It's only six-thirty, but when he says yes she pulls him into her room and changes into her pajamas. He doesn't say anything about the hunger that spears distantly through him for the naked parts of that process, just strips down to Oliver's t-shirt and boxers while she loads her shotgun and lays it on the floor by the bed. They lie in her bed and spoon for hours, not talking. Probably they could both use dinner, but Tommy can't bring himself to suggest it. Laurel's bed feels safe and soft, and she might have switched shampoos but her sheets still smell the same. Actually, she must not be doing laundry as often as she used to, because her sheets smell even more like her than he remembers. It's nice. He hovers in that drowsy warm place between awake and dozing, his eyes closed and his arm holding her close. Every so often she starts crying again, a soft trickle of tears he only notices because she sniffles. He smooths her hair back and kisses her temple and tries not to think about armed men breaking down the bedroom door.


End file.
